“Revolution” by Peter Ackroyd

From 1688 to 1815 occurred some of the most tumultuous events that shaped the modern world. James IIwas replaced on the English throne by William and Mary; France under Louis XIV became the pivot of war in Europe; The Seven Years War (aka the French and Indian War) reshaped the political map of North America; the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution; the American Revolution; the French Revolution and Reign of Terror; and the Napoleonic era, finding ending in the fields outside Brussels. 

In Revolution: The History of England from the Battle of the Boyne to the Battle of Waterloo, British author Peter Ackroyddepicts the story of monarchs, war, societal upheavals, and cultural changes. Continuing his series on the history of England (this is volume 4), he tells a riveting story.

The religious wars that started with the Reformation in the early 1500s finally played themselves out in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. James II was a bit too Catholic and finds himself replaced by William of Orange and James’s daughter Mary. Childless, they’re succeeded by Queen Anne, but she, too, dies without an heir (only one child survived infancy and he died young). Parliament turned to a distant relation in the German state of Hanover,George I (1660-1727), who was staunchly Protestant. But if there is a central figure in this period, it is George III (1738-1820), the nemesis of the American colonists, and the monarch whose bouts with madness caused no end of reactions and responses.

Ackroyd pays close attention to the significant events affecting business and industry during the period. The Bank of England was founded. Freedom of the press emerged in England less as a declared right and more because Parliament forgot to extend a law regulating printing (Ackroyd notes the almost immediate effect of an explosion of news sheets had on politics). The Industrial Revolution emerged as a significant factor in society, including the manufacture of Josiah Wedgewood’s plates, mechanized spinning of textiles, and the steam engine. 

Social justice issues, like the call for the abolition of slavery, began to be sounded by people like William Wilberforce and Hannah More. And this was the era of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s plays, Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine, the speeches of Edmund Burke, and the writings of Adam Smith. And in the 1790s, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge helped give birth to Romanticism.

Peter Ackroyd

Political and economic changes led to almost ongoing social unrest. The upper classes in England feared (and understandably so) the spread of the French Revolution, but crop failures, economic downturns, political changes, and even rumors fueled riots and protests.

Ackroyd points out that the American Revolution was the first political change that wasn’t about installing a new monarch or a new church, inspiring many revolutions and political changes that followed.

The author is one of Britain’s most prolific popular historians. In addition to his history of England series, he’s also written biographies of Charles Dickens and the artist J.M.W. Turner, among several others; a history of London (and a history of London beneath the streets); and many other works.

The period from 1688 to 1815 was exciting and momentous, and Ackroyd’s Revolution brings it fully to life.

Related:

My review of Rebellion by Peter Ackroyd.

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Foundation.

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Tudors.

Reading Peter Ackroyd.

A Revolt over a Prayer Book.

Top illustration: George III’s coronation portrait (1762) by Allan Ramsay.

“The Silent Boy” by Andrew Taylor

It is Paris, in the very early days of the French Revolution. The Tuileries Palace has just been stormed; blood is running in the streets; and people are being brutally attacked and murdered all over the city. A boy, about 10 years old, is running through the crowds and the mobs. No one pays attention to the blood on his clothes; everyone’s clothing seems smeared with blood. He makes his way across the Seine and finds the house of an old servant. She soon brings him to the Count de Quillon, somewhat barricaded within his own compound but making plans to flee.

The boy, Charles, doesn’t speak. His muteness frustrates all who come into contact with him. The reader knows that someone has told him not to say a word, and never to speak of what has happened. What all assume is that he’s witnessed the death of his mother, who has assumed many names (and lovers) over the past decade but is still the official wife of an Englishman, Edward Savill. Savill and his wife had one child, a daughter named Lizzie, who is now 19, and wants to welcome her new brother.

The count and his entourage, including Charles, make their way from Paris to rural England. The local townspeople are suspicious of the foreigners; the British government is keeping an eye on them – Britain does not want to import the Revolution. And Savill, the boy’s father in name if not in fact, is asked to retrieve the boy from the count and bring him to London.

The Silent Boy by British author Andrew Taylor is gripping, riveting historical fiction. It’s a book that makes a reader put it down several times to relieve the tension created by the story, but pick it up quickly again to see what happens next.

Andrew Taylor

It turns out that Savill isn’t the only one interested in retrieving the boy. And the count wants to hold on to him, claiming Charles is his son. And government interests are somehow involved. And Charles, never speaking but always thinking, trying to take care of himself, and taking advantage of every opportunity to escape and perhaps find his English family.

Taylor is the author of a long list of historical crime and fiction novels, including The Mortal Sickness (1996); The Four Last Things (1997); The Lover of the Grave (1997); The Judgment of Strangers (1998); The Office of the Dead (1998); The Suffocating Night (1999); When Roses Fade (2001); The American Boy (2004); An Unpardonable Crime (2004); Bleeding Heart Square (2009); Anatomy of Ghosts (2012); The Scent of Death (2014); Fireside Gothic (2016); The Ashes of London (2017); and several others. The Silent Boy was published in 2014. He lives near the English-Welsh border in the U.K.

The Silent Boy is an exciting story, filled with details of a period that witnessed so many people, private and public, caught up in the upheaval of the French Revolution.

Illustration: A scene from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

The Strangeness of “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens

It is strange to read A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1812-1870) and see the ongoing media coverage of Charlottesville, controversies over and vandalism of Confederate monuments, and the divisions in American society becoming only sharper. I say “strange” because the story that Dickens tells is a reminder that despite our science, our technology, our educational attainments, and the growth of knowledge, our human condition remains stubbornly the same.

The first and last time I read the book was in my sophomore year of high school. Our English class dutifully carried around the paperback edition published by Dell (the publisher, not the computer maker) with a yellow-orange cover. It’s one of Dickens’s shorter works, but to 10^th grade boys, it still looked like a lot of fat book to read. Some in our class found the Cliff Notes version of the book, while others got their hands on the Classics Illustrated comic book edition. A few of us read the book itself.

And until I recently reread it, I’d forgotten what a wonderful story it is. Published in 1859, A Tale of Two Cities is one of Dickens’s later novels, which had the advantage of being written from a coherent outline. His earlier books, like Oliver Twist and Pickwick Papers, were written for magazine serialization without the benefit of the author knowing from the outset where the story was going. And it is a major reason why his later novels remain some of the most powerful works in literature – he knew from the beginning where the story was going to end.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Illustration: Madame Defarge in the wine shop, one of the illustrations by Hablot Knight Browne (“Phiz”) for A Tale of Two Cities.